The ability to decenter from internal experiences is important for mental health. Consequently, improving decentering is a common therapeutic target, particularly for mindfulness-based interventions. However, extant decentering measures are limited as they fail to directly assess all 3 metacognitive processes recently theorized to subserve decentering. We thus conducted 4 studies to develop and...
Mindfulness-Based-Cognitive-Therapy (MBCT) reduces vulnerability for relapse into depression by helping individuals to counter tendencies to engage in maladaptive repetitive patterns of thinking and respond more compassionately to negative self-judgment. However, little is known about the neural correlates underlying these effects. To elucidate these correlates, we investigated fMRI brain...
BACKGROUND Acceptance/mindfulness-based interventions often focus on (a) developing dispositional mindfulness and (b) pursuing personally meaningful and valued activities. Acceptance/mindfulness-based interventions can reduce depression, but little is known about the combined effects of components or the influence of baseline variables on outcomes. This study tested whether practicing a brief...
BACKGROUND The literature suggests that cognitive reactivity in bipolar patients can increase relapse vulnerability, is enhanced by depressive mood and dysfunctional attitudes, and could be improved with MBCT. Autobiographical memory (AM) could be involved in cognitive reactivity, and improved with MBCT training. This study aims to investigate the effect of MBCT for bipolar patients on...
Psychological science has taken up investigations of the effectiveness of mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) and mechanisms through which people benefit from mindfulness. Reliable and valid psychometric tools are essential components of psychological science, and efforts have been made to produce tools for the accurate measurement of mindfulness as a construct. However, trait measurement...
Abstract Objective We examined the effects of MMIs on depression in older adults and explored the moderating effects of participant, methods, and intervention characteristics. Methods We systematically searched 15 databases through June 2019 without date restrictions using the following search terms: (mindful* OR meditat*) AND depress* AND (older adult* OR elder OR aging OR senior OR...
Objective: There has been a growing interest in the study of the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). Many clinical trials and experimental designs have been implemented, with different samples and diverse MBI procedures. Reviews have shown unclear results, apart from a tendency to identify low-to-moderate effectiveness. The purpose of this review is to examine the...
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Few studies have focused on the utility of mindfulness-meditation for well-being in older adults. The present study investigated the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of an app-based mindfulness-meditation program among older adults. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A community-based sample of 46 participants aged between 63 and 81 (M = 70.85, SD = 4.70)...
In recent years, research on meditation as an important alternative therapy has developed rapidly and been widely applied in clinical medicine. Mechanism studies of meditation have also developed progressively, showing that meditation has great impact on brain structure and function, and epigenetic and telomere regulation. In line with this, the application of meditation has gradually been...
Abstract: Can meditation kill? This chapter claims that meditation-induced samādhi, and the power associated with it, were used in Imperial Japan (1868–1945). The Zen school is founded on samādhi and the power associated with it. Without samādhi, “Zen,” (Sankrit Dhyāna; English meditation) would become just another “mental health” practice, rather than the basis for a profound realization of...
Shamatha, Transcendental, and Stillness Meditation are said to aim for "contentless" experiences, where mental content such as thoughts, perceptions, and mental images is absent. Silence is understood to be a central feature of those experiences. The main source of information about the experiences is texts by experts from within the three traditions. Previous research has tended not to use an...
The article presents an action research work developed with the cello class of a conservatory with the intention of studying the benefits of yoga and meditation in the learning of an instrument and in the management of some problems inherent to music students, such as musculoskeletal disorders and stage anxiety. The results are intended to help improve teaching practice, distancing musical...
This article explores Jamaican secondary school principals' use of mindfulness meditation as a spiritual well-being strategy to manage their work-related stress and anxiety.,The author used qualitative semi-structured interviews to collect the data from 12 Jamaican secondary school principals working in schools supporting rural, urban and inner-city school communities. Thematic coding of the...
ABSTRACT Previous meta-analytic results showed beneficial effects of meditation interventions for cortisol levels. In the present meta-analysis we tested whether effects are larger for those who might be in need of such stress reduction programs due to a risk for elevated cortisol levels as compared to no-risk samples. We included RCTs that measured change in cortisol levels. Based on 10...
MOCOJuly 5, 2020K. Cochrane, L. Loke, Andrew J. Campbell et al.
Developing interactive soundscapes for walking meditation has the potential to bring new opportunities of research in human-computer interaction and design. In this paper, we present our case study Sound of Mind, an interactive ambient soundscape that is transformed by one of the participant's brainwave data in a group walking meditation practice.
ABSTRACT In this article, I explore three important claims: (1) that Buddhist meditative practice is an important way in which therapists can enhance their abilities to be empathic by helping to clear the mind of incessant predispositions that both organize and distort perceptions; (2) that empathy and compassion are different and need to be carefully distinguished insofar as empathy is a...
Verbal instructions provided during yoga classes can differ substantially. Yoga instructors might choose to focus on the physical aspects of yoga (e.g., by emphasizing the characteristics of the poses), or they might take a more spiritual approach (e.g., by mentioning energy flow and chakras). The present study investigated the effects of verbal cues during yoga practice on various...
ABSTRACT The study of digital religion is currently in its fourth wave of research, focusing closely on the interrelation between users and digital religious technologies. In the fields of philosophy, cognitive science and cultural studies, looping effects, or the dynamic process of subject formation as a result of the development and internalisation of new categorisation schemes, have been...